Something critics of the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates say they’ve dreaded for years – a voting combine of the three biggest towns – happened this week, with surprising results.

Delegates from Barnstable, Falmouth, and Yarmouth voted to pass along to the voters a proposal to abolish the Assembly and the Board of County Commissioners and create an 11-district regional council. But even when joined by Chatham’s delegate, advocates just missed a majority and the measure failed Jan. 18 by 50.61 percent to 49.39 percent.

“I’ve been on this board for 14 years,” Mashpee Delegate Marcia King said before the vote. “Never once have the three towns that will vote for this done that…. I’m just saddened that the large towns, pardon my French, will vote to screw the smaller towns.”

Whether this week’s vote was just another chapter in the long-running struggle over how best to govern the county, or a signal to all to move on to other matters, was unclear. A second motion to debate creating an elected county administrator was tabled, with Speaker Ron Bergstrom saying it would be up to himself and Assembly Clerk Janice O’Connell to schedule the subject again. The Assembly, which meets only twice a month, is preparing to review the proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Also in the wings is the resolution the Assembly passed a year ago advising its preference for a five-member board of commissioners elected from five districts, an appointed county administrator, and the Assembly as constituted.

This week, Yarmouth Delegate Suzanne McAuliffe made the motion for the 11-member council, arguing that “each citizen will have more of a voice than they do now. Right now, the three larger towns can vote something through and not permit smaller towns to have their say. The current system has the potential to shut out smaller towns.”

Votes in the Assembly are based on towns’ populations. Barnstable tops the list with almost 21 percent, and Truro is at the other end of the scale with less than 1 percent. A switch of any “nay” vote this week would have resulted in a different outcome.

Opponents of the district council argued that the individual voices of the Cape’s smaller towns would be lost in a multi-town district serving the Lower Cape, and that larger towns would actually wind up with additional representation through shared districts.

“I think the result is anti-democratic,” said Orleans Delegate Chris Kanaga. “It consolidates power at the expense of the small.”

Speaker Ron Bergstrom of Chatham, who voted to advance the proposal even though he disagrees with it, said he asked the Assembly to create a charter review committee “basically as a challenge to those who say there’s a groundswell of support for change and you, the Assembly, are standing in the way… I don’t believe that there’s any support for this among the people of the towns… I’m willing to put that challenge out, and let’s see if there’s any support to this, because I’m confident there isn’t. I don’t want this body to say [it’s] protecting its own turf.”

Barnstable’s delegate, Patrick Princi, said he was “not necessarily in favor of the charter as written to be changed… [but] I feel very strongly that voters should have a say in the matter.”